


Ever After

by Magestorrow



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud, Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Multi, but are getting anyways, the duo you never knew you needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2019-08-09 06:48:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16444880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magestorrow/pseuds/Magestorrow
Summary: In one reality, a magician sacrifices himself to stop a threat that would destroy the world. In another, a ghost does much the same, deciding that he's finally unafraid of what comes next. But when Nathaniel and Skull accept their fates, they find themselves in another world called Arium, where people who have lost their lives in other realities are marked by Ouroboros tattoos and are given the same wondrous powers as the world's other inhabitants. Though both would much rather stay apart than stick together, they'll need to work as a team if they want any chance at figuring out what their purpose is.(Featuring major spoilers for both Bartimaeus and Lockwood and Co, as this story focuses mainly on the characters who have died.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Nathaniel**

Everything hurt so, so badly, and then-

_Nothing._

This only lasted a short time. He had no idea how he was so certain of such a fact, but it was an undeniable truth. It was impossible to pinpoint the exact amount of time this nothingness lasted, but his nonexistent self knew that didn't truly matter. He was simply floating in nothingness, and soon something would take the place of that nothing.

And it did, eventually.

He was drifting in and out of consciousness. He was dead. He knew that he had died – he could remember his final words, uttered to someone who he might have called a friend, and could remember the moment it had all ended. But this didn't feel like death. This felt like life. It was painful, but it meant that he had a second chance. He clung to that chance as desperately as he could. Every moment where he snapped back from nothingness, he made sure to note everything that happened. He noted being poked in the side by a gritty finger. He noted the sound of someone talking, their voice young and casual. He noted the feeling of being hoisted onto someone's back. By the time he had finally become conscious, he had realized that all three of these incidents were connected, and that the boy currently carrying him was at the root of it all.

The boy was a commoner, no doubt. His clothes were little more than rags – though the style was unusual – and every inch of visible bare skin was covered in grime and dirt. He couldn't get a good look at the boy's face, but his spiky hair and lanky limbs gave him quite the memorable appearance.

When the boy (his captor? savior?) noticed that he had finally awoken, he unceremoniously dumped him into the hot desert sand. This was met with a steady string of swears on his part, some even in languages he had no memory of actually learning – Bartimaeus, apparently, had left him more than just an irritating headache.

He got to his feet, tried (and failed) to brush the sand off of his already filthy pants and leveled a glare in the boy's direction.

The boy responded to this by casually sticking a finger in his ear and removing a very large wad of earwax.

“How dare you-” Nathaniel started to say.

“How dare I what?” the boy interrupted, taking a tentative sniff of the earwax on his fingertip. Nathaniel scrunched his face up into a expression of disgust at the spectacle. When no answer was given, he looked far more smug than he should have. “So, brat, you're not going to even thank me?”

He stared.

“ _Thank_ you?” he scoffed, folding his arms and slightly lessening his glare. “You carried me against my will and then dropped me before I could even understand why I was being carried in the first place!”

The boy shrugged. “I thought I was doing you a favor, kid. The birds were trying to eat you, and I even fended off a wolf or two.” He paused, studied him, and then added, “Besides, Lucy would kill me if I let someone die when I could help them. Something about 'morals' and 'doing the right thing'. Fat lot of good that did me when I end up like _this_ after finally deciding to fully kick the bucket.”

The name meant nothing to him, as well as whatever the boy was going off about, but something about the tone was just too familiar for him not to notice. He had vaguely been aware of it earlier. Now that he was fully conscious, however, it was far easier to determine where the recognition was coming from.

He blinked.

“ _Bartimaeus_?”

The boy stared at him. “Barti-who?” 

“Bartimae-” 

He stopped. This boy wasn't Bartimaeus. He was a human – a commoner, no less, though something about him felt _different_ – and he doubted someone like him would even care about demons in the first place.

There was no point in mentioning the djinni right now; he had other issues to worry about at the moment. He needed to figure out why he wasn't dead, who this boy was and where here even was. Here apparently was a desert from what he saw when he looked around, but he didn't have the foggiest idea of how he could have ended up in one after getting nearly killed in the Glass Palace.

He sighed and held out a hand, grimacing as the boy grabbed onto it with the hand that had been covered in earwax. “Who are you, then?” Nathaniel asked. The boy gave the hand a firm shake, took a step back and surveyed the sorry excuse for a magician in front of him.

“You can call me Skull,” he said. Well, _that_ was an edgy name. Had that name been given to him by his parents, or had he decided it on his own. “You?”

“J-” He hesitated. He still had no idea how he had ended up here, but, for once in his life, he didn't want to be known as a magician. His time with Bartimaeus and Kitty – though brief – had shown him that the ways of a magician weren't the best, and this was his opportunity to be himself. “Nathaniel.” 

The commoner nodded.

“Natty boy, then,” he declared.

Nathaniel stared at him.

“Are you sure you're not Bartimaeus?” he weakly asked.

“Never heard of him,” Skull promptly replied.

The boy promptly turned around, grabbed him with a gritty hand, and began to drag him off into the seemingly endless horizon. Nathaniel would have protested, but something told him protesting wasn't going to amount to all that much.


	2. Chapter 2

**Skull**

Death certainly wasn't like it was advertised. After that dramatic finale, I had been sure that I was going onto whatever awaits the deceased. It certainly would have been better than sticking around in that jar, though I would be lying if I said I hadn't enjoyed some of the time that I spent with Lockwood and Co. – though, more specifically, it was the time with Lucy Carlyle that I was going to miss the most.

But I wasn't dead.

At least, it didn't feel like it. I hadn't exactly expected to be transparent again, but I also hadn't anticipated suddenly waking up in the middle of a desert with actual skin on my bones. Add in the fact that I had woken up next to a complete stranger, and I was fairly certain that my exit from the world hadn't gone as planned. 

I couldn't put my finger on exactly what, but something about him just seemed _off_. I tried my best to figure out what. His clothes, though covered in grit and grime, looked fairly decent. Was he some rich kid, then? He looked like he could have fallen right on the cusp of being an agent – with his powers just starting to decline – but even that didn't make much sense. He had nothing that I had come to associate with the agents of the present day. There was no rapier. No little jars of Greek fire. No magnesium flares. For all intents and purposes, he appeared to be normal, but that made very little sense once I realized it looked like an explosion had gone off in his face.

Now he was awake, and we heading off to who-knows-where. 

I let out a sigh – not one that was loud enough for the brat to hear, but one that let me get out some pent-up frustrations. I had been trying to move on. Did life have to be so unfair that I couldn't even get _that_ satisfaction? To make things worse, I was entirely human. Not a single bit of the powers I had during my time as a ghost remained, so I was just as useless and pitiful as the boy trudging along behind me. 

“Hey,” I said, coming to a sudden stop. Nathaniel let out a few choice words at the abrupt pause in our currently short journey, but I ignored the colorful language as I thought of the best way to phrase my question. “You're not a ghost, are you?”

A stare was my answer.

I sighed again, this time loud enough for him to pick up on it. “Never mind, then,” I told him. It had been a foolish theory when I thought about it. Ghosts were rarely Type Threes like me, and something oddly gave me the feeling that the experience I was going through was a distinctively Type Three-thing. I gave a casual stretch, then went to hurry on my way-

Only for Nathaniel to grab onto my shoulder.

“Why are you asking that question?”

I shook his hand off of my shoulder. “It's nothing. I'm probably just going crazy.” Or already had, seeing that I was convinced I was alive instead of dead like I was supposed to be. Being stuck in a jar for years upon years didn't do good things to one's mental state, and the things that Cubbins had done certainly hadn't helped.

“But why did you ask that question?”

I groaned and spun around. If he was going to keep bugging me about it, I was just going to have to get it out there as simply as I possibly could and hope that he didn't think I had lost it. I didn't truly need him in the first place, but some company was nice – especially when I didn't have Lucy to bug anymore. “I'm supposed to dead as a door nail,” I declared. “I died years ago, haunted my skull for a bit, and then decided to finally kick the bucket when that got too boring for little old me.”

“That...” Nathaniel started to say.

“...makes absolutely no sense?” I finished. I shrugged, and casually picked my nose. Inappropriate gestures did wonders for an already awkward conversation. “Yeah, figured you say that.” 

He shook his head. “I wasn't thinking that.”

“Sure you weren't.”

He shook his head a little more energetically, as if this would somehow change my mind. “I died too,” he informed me. I would have guessed he was joking – after all, Lucy's little group had a penchant for sarcasm – but the tone was completely serious. “I shouldn't be alive right now. It seems absurd, but I think we were given a second chance.”

I looked around at the desert, then turned back to Nathaniel.

“I don't think our second chance is going to amount to much, Natty boy,” I pointed out, gesturing at the vast emptiness surrounding us. “We're going to probably die out here, and I don't even know where here really is.”

Nathaniel shook his head again. He seemed to like arguing with me, but I honestly shouldn't have been surprised. Kids these days – they never respect their elders! Crossing my arms, I waited for the inevitable explanation of why I was so wrong. Nathaniel raised a hand up and gestured at something off to the side of my vision. I turned ever so slightly to get a glimpse of what that thing was, and was astonished to see a massive building jutting out of the dunes.

I glanced back at Nathaniel.

“Oh, wipe that smug look off of your face,” I grumbled.

The smug look stubbornly remained.

I flipped him off, spun around once more and promptly stormed off towards the structure with Nathaniel following in my footsteps. 

**~v~**

I had been in a lot of different types of buildings during my times as a living person and as a ghost, but none of them quite compared to the building Nathaniel and I found ourselves in. From the dumbfounded look on his face, he was just as surprised by its architecture. It looked like a weird mix between modern and ancient. I hadn't seen that many old places before, but I had seen pictures once or twice, and this looked like something that could have been out of one of them. It was a long and high building, with several floors all constructed out of condensed sand. 

We were greeted by a roll of thunder in the distance as we started to look for some signs of life. The clouds moved in quickly, and soon we found that the place was mostly submerged in darkness – the only light source being a string of candles lining the walls that glowed fiercely despite the lack of any people. For all intents and purposes, it seemed like Nathaniel and I are were the only people present. 

Our sole companions were the ancient suits of armor that popped occasionally beside doors and along the walls. I studied them carefully as we silently made our ways through the dim halls. They didn't match anything I'd ever seen before, but this place wasn't exactly normal. Nathaniel didn't seem to have any opinion of him. Judging by the state of his clothing, he was probably rich enough to own a set himself back when he was alive. I could imagine him being part of some fancy big agency – Fittes, probably – and sauntering through the halls in their spiffy little uniforms. The thought made me shudder.

“Skull,” Nathaniel said. I glanced over at him. He was nervously searching the hall we were in, his gaze landing on the now flickering candles. “It's getting darker.”

I brushed it off with a dismissive wave of my hand. “It's just your imagination-”

I could see my breath in the air.

I slowly looked behind me at the nearest candle. Its roaring flame had been reduced to a pitiful little ember, and the ones nearby quickly were following suit.

I knew the signs. Why wouldn't I have? Even if I hadn't spent the last few months kicking around in Lucy's backpack, I had been dead for long enough to understand the basics of a haunting. There's a temperature drop. Lights can go out. And very, very rarely was there enough time to sit around and decide what the best way to handle the situation was – you had to act first and think later. So I couldn't think about how unfair it was to be stuck as a living, breathing human when a haunting was about to happen. I couldn't think about how terrified I really felt, even though I would have never let Nathaniel realize that. I couldn't think about how I wished for some sort of weapon, and how, for the briefest of moments, I wished for Lucy and her fellow agents to show up out of thin air and save our hides.

As more thunder boomed outside among a downpour of rain, I acted.

I grabbed onto Nathaniel's hand and darted into the nearest room. The lights quickly went in succession behind us, and I could feel Nathaniel's hand shivering in my own trembling hand. It had been so easy to feel confident when dealing with Ezekiel; I had a plethora of ghostly tricks up my sleeve. Now I only had myself and Nathaniel, and, if his reaction was anything to go off, he hadn't been agent when alive.

I slammed the door behind us.

The room was bathed in warmth radiating from a fireplace in between two large windows in the back of the room, and I immediately started bringing Nathaniel towards it. He didn't argue. He just let me drag him around, though it was interesting to note the lack of obvious fear on his face. I scanned the nearby area for the instruments typically used to tend to a fire. “Iron, iron, iron,” I muttered. Something here had to be useful in fending off a ghost!

“Silver works better on spirits, actually,” Nathaniel piped up from besides me. He was looking up at the mantel, studying the array of antiques displayed on top of it.

I paused in my search.

“What?” I incredulously said. “No, iron does. It's the basics of a haunting. What are you-”

The fire suddenly went out.

We were submerged in darkness.

And, for the first time in my second life, I felt as terrified as I had when I had died oh so long ago.


	3. Chapter 3

**Skull**

Things suddenly didn't feel right.

I felt taller. Leaner. I groped around in the dark for some source of light, convinced that I was either hallucinating or had managed to die again, considering that a ghost had been just about to entire the room before everything went black. I was beginning to get an incredibly irritating the headache. This I contributed to my stress and not a ghost; the first seemed more likely, and I really didn't want to think about get paralyzed by a weak Type One or Two.

Every footstep was a struggle. It felt like my limbs were heavy from lack of sleep – I'd start to move, only to have to carefully think the rest of the action through if I wanted to make any sort of progress. I rubbed my forehead with the palm of my hand. The headache was growing even more unbearable, but I had to focus if I wanted to defend myself from the ghost.

(And Nathaniel, since he definitely wasn't knowledgeable when it came to handling the deceased.)

Then my foot bumped into the body.

There was no response; nothing outright suggested that I had just kicked a corpse. But I knew what bodies felt like, and I knew that someone who had been alive or semi-conscious certainly wouldn't have reacted so calmly to being hit in the gut by my shoe. I kicked the body again, this time with more force than before. Nothing happened.

Frowning, I leaned down to examine it. I was no stranger to death, but something felt out of the ordinary. Why hadn't I heard the body hit the ground? Who did it belong to? Was it Nathaniel's? But how had I managed to escape being harmed by the ghost if that was the reason for him being reduced to an unmoving body on the ground? Better yet, _where_ was the ghost? 

I grabbed onto the collar of the body's shirt and hoisted its owner up. It was still too dark to make out its features, but the fabric underneath my fingers felt coarse and familiar. I furrowed my brow. Why was I hit by such a strong sense of recognition as I squinted into the darkness? 

Thunder ominously rolled overheard, and a flash of lightning briefly illuminated the room. Shadows danced across the body's face. I tried to keep calm, but there was no one living in the room to judge me. I gave a terrified, startled cry. I dropped the body. I stumbled back into the nearest piece of furniture. I did everything that someone was supposed to do in a situation like this, except for the fact that no one was really ever supposed to see their own dead corpse in their hands.

And then things managed to get even worse.

_B-Bartimaeus?_

“I'm not-” I started to say, only to give another startled cry and fling my hands up to cover my mouth. Or, more correctly, Nathaniel's hands went shot up to cover his mouth. The voice that had left what I had assumed to be my own living, breathing body wasn't my own.

It was his.

I was in Nathaniel's body.

 _Skull?_ Nathaniel asked. _What are you-How are you-_

I didn't feel his lips moving. He wasn't speaking aloud. He was speaking inside his head; it didn't make any sort of sense, but I had somehow managed to possess him. The ghost must have gotten me, I tried to reason. The ghost must have gotten me, and I died, and I decided to stupidly possess the nearest object. But that explanation didn't account for why I couldn't remember my own death, and why I was suddenly able to take control of someone's body when I had never experimented with that particular ability in the past.

“I don't know!” I replied, exasperated. “I don't know how I ended up in your meat suit, Natty boy!” 

_...I'm going to ignore how you just called my body a meat suit._

I plopped Nathaniel's body down in the nearest chair. “You're taking your body getting hijacked awfully well,” I miserably commented, staring at the limp body that was only a few feet away. Just as I was starting to get used to be alive again, I was stuck as a ghost. Wonderful. Should I have even been surprised?

_It's not my first time._

I turned my attention away from my corpse. “You've been possessed before?” 

_I guess you could say that._ He paused. _Just before I ended up here, I was sharing my body with a demon._

I scoffed. “Demons don't exist.”

 _Spirits,_ he corrected. 

“Still don't exist,” I declared, kicking Nathaniel's feet back and staring up at a ceiling I could barely make out in the darkness. “I've been around long enough to know – the closest you'll ever get to a demon is a vengeful ghost.”

 _They do,_ Nathaniel protested. _I've summoned them before._

“Great.” I groaned, hopping back up with a little extra effort and peering into the darkness. If I could figure out some way to light the fire, I could get a better idea of what had happened. “You're crazy.”

_Says the commoner who claimed he haunted his own skull._

“Do you live under a rock?” I asked, momentarily pausing my fruitless search. I tried to look over at him out of habit. When I remembered that I was him, I scowled. “The Problem has been going on for years! Anyone with half a brain knows that ghosts exist-”

Before Nathaniel had a chance to reply, warmth and light returned to the room. If a ghost was like a vacuum that sucked everything in, what happened was the vacuum pushing everything back out – the fire suddenly sprang to life, and the light enveloped every previously dark inch of the room. I took the opportunity to make a beeline over to my body. It didn't look like it had been touched by a ghost, but I hadn't exactly had a decent view of people getting killed by ghosts during my time in my jar.

And then I saw it was breathing.

I jerked my body back up to its feet, slapped it a couple of times, and, when that failed, furiously started to shake it. This was met by confusion on Nathaniel's part, but he had no idea what it was like to die and suddenly realize that you weren't really dead-

Oh.

I resumed my attempts to wake myself back up with vigor, convinced that this was some weird sort of dream thing. I knew that I was awake. It didn't feel like what I remembered dreams being like. But maybe the only reason I couldn't return to my body was because I was in some sort of trance – my body probably hadn't gotten quite used to having me in it again. 

“Come on,” I muttered. “Wake up!”

_It's not going to work._

“Of course it will,” I shot back. “Why wouldn't it?”

 _You're currently controlling my body,_ Nathaniel said. His voice took on the sort of snobbish tone I would have expected from the Fittes agent I had thought him to possibly be. _It's not like you're asleep._

“My body seems to think otherwise. Look, I've even got a snot bubble coming out of my noise!” I poked it for emphasis, just to make him feel a little squeamish. My attempt had its intended effect. Nathaniel mentally retched in disgust and, feeling quite smug, I went back to shaking my body. 

But eventually I came to realize that this was getting me absolutely nowhere, so I hoisted my body onto Nathaniel's back and started to head towards the door. My legs dragged behind me, and my arms hung loosely over Nathaniel's shoulders.

_What are you doing?_

“I'm finding out how to get back into my body,” I solemnly informed him. “Unless you have any ideas.”

_I don't. But do we really have to drag it with us?_

“I'm not leaving my body alone,” I said. “Something horrible could happen to it. What if that ghost came back and strangled it? Then I'd be stuck in you forever, and I really don't like the thought of being that. Do you?”

_...No-_

“No what-”

 _Shut up,_ Nathaniel hissed. _Don't you hear someone?_

I opened his mouth to answer the question, then wisely closed it when I realized he probably had a point if someone was there. Peering down into the now candlelit hallway, I saw a figure start to approach us. The grip on my body tightened. Though it should have been one of the first things I grabbed, I had no iron to fend off a paranormal threat with – why had I decided that my body was my main priority? I had lived as a ghost for a decent part of my life. I could do it again, if I had to. And I was sure Nathaniel would prefer being stuck with a permanent backseat driver instead of dying for a second time.

But the newcomer wasn't a ghost.

She was a young woman, one dressed in clothing that looked incredibly unfamiliar. I watched her as she approached, warily shifting the weight of my body from one shoulder to the other, and waited for something that would inevitably explain why she was here. Before I could learn that, however, I found a knife was suddenly being thrust at Nathaniel's throat.

“Why are you carrying a dead body?” she asked.

“Actually, it's-”

 _Don't let her know,_ Nathaniel said.

I frowned. “Why not?”

_She'll think we're crazy._

“I'll just explain it to her.”

 _That will seem even more crazy!_

“I thrive off of people thinking the worst of me,” I informed him. “You should have seen some of the faces I'd pull at Cubbins when his back was turned – Lucy would either be so disgusted that she'd ignore me for the rest of the day, or would be trying to hold back laughter.”

 _This isn't a laughing matter-_ Nathaniel sighed. _How old are you, again?_

“Older than you, that's for sure-”

The tip of the knife suddenly dug farther into Nathaniel's skin. I could see the blood trickling down the front of his already dirtied shirt, staining the few white areas that remained. Panic immediately set in; though I had no idea what Nathaniel was thinking, I was sure it was a mutual feeling. 

“Who are you talking to?” the young woman demanded.

I clamped Nathaniel's lips shut. I didn't trust myself to give an answer, especially when Nathaniel probably was onto something. She'd never believe us if I tried telling her the truth. And if I didn't give her the truth, I had no idea what to say. It was funny how quickly the world could switch like that – I used to thrive off of messing with Luce and her friends.

“Is there a spirit here?” she asked, the knife lessening its pressure ever so slightly. The woman narrowed her eyes and stared at right beside his ear. “Is one speaking to you right now?”

“No,” I said. I couldn't help it; the need to be a smart ass was simply too strong. “But you're speaking to one.”

Nathaniel groaned.

_We're going to die._

“Eh,” I said, “the thought of that happening is only terrifying the first time around.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't ever planning on writing more of this story, but then I made the mistake of writing from Skull's perspective in a roleplay. It made me remember just how much I loved the shenanigans I was going to write between this trio, and I decided to impulsively write another chapter today. 
> 
> You might notice that the woman - who's name is revealed in this chapter - isn't technically dead in her respective series. But I do have plans to explain her death /after/ that series, so she still fits the rules of the story. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!

“You're not going to die,” she said. She resisted the urge to let out a sigh, swatting a bug straying a little too close to her neck with her free hand. Despite the presence of the seemingly dead body, she didn't feel all that threatened by the man in front of her – if he could even be called that. She squinted to get a better look at his grimy face, but the torchlight only helped so much.

She put the knife down.

“That's a relief,” the boy said. The body he was carrying was unceremoniously dumped onto the ground. Something about him seemed familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what. Then his earlier comment – the one about being a spirit registered – and she was overcome with a mixture of dread and relief.

“...Bartimaeus?” she asked.

“Who's this Bartimaeus,” the spirit said, a tinge of irritation in his voice as he picked his nose, “and why do you think I'm him, too-” 

“You know Bartimaeus?” 

The switch was sudden and unexpected – an expression of surprise flickered across his face, and the spirit went stumbling back into the wall behind him. Or he would have, if it wasn't for the unconscious boy's legs sprawled out into the hallway. A loud crashing noise resounded through the corridor; despite the gravity of the situation, an amused smile danced across her lips. 

“You're not supposed to do that,” the spirit hissed.

“Well, it looks like I can,” was the indignant response – also spoken by the spirit. 

She raised an eyebrow. She had believed she knew everything there was to know about spirits, but there was nothing to explain this strange conversation.

“Besides,” the spirit said, getting to his feet and brushing the dust off of his pants, “it's my body.”

“It's mine, too.”

He groaned. “ _Your_ body is right over there.” She followed where his hand was pointing and stared at the unconscious body on the floor. For a moment, she tried to understand the implications, but then decided it was best to just let things play out on their own. Bartimaeus or not, this spirit was odd, and she didn't want a thing to do with that oddness.

“I got kicked out of my body,” the spirit continued, “so I get to lay claim to yours while I'm in it.”

The spirit massaged his temples. 

“My body's not a place to rent,” he said, voice low and irritated.

“My consciousness says otherwise.”

The spirit let out a very loud groan and slumped to the floor beside the unconscious boy. The groan was followed by a sigh as the spirit's eyes fluttered shut. She was grateful for the silence that followed – it gave her a chance to figure out what she should do next.

But before she could put her barely formed plan into action, the unconscious boy suddenly sprung up. The spirit yelped in surprise, and the boy looked down at himself with a steadily growing grin. A grin that looked more than a little...disturbing, but she let that pass.

“I'm me again!” the boy exclaimed. He sounded downright pleased with himself, but Asmira was more focused on the spirit that was once again getting to his feet. The spirit went to join the boy at his side, but the boy immediately darted away from him. “Stay back, Natty boy – I don't want to end up in you again-”

The two stared at each other.

“Please don't ever say that again,” the spirit said.

“I wasn't thinking of it,” the boy replied.

They turned back to her.

And she, in turn, felt the very strong urge to get her knife.

“I think we need to talk,” the spirit said. He held out a hand in offering, and she hesitantly shook it. The personality was incredibly different than before, but the calmer and smoother tone made her feel less flustered than before. “My name's Nathaniel, and the boy behind me is Skull. Who are you-”

“You're being diplomatic,” Skull commented, a smirk on his lips as he slipped past Nathaniel. “I didn't know you could do that.”

Nathaniel glared at him.

Ignoring the tension, she gave his hand a shake.

“I'm Asmira,” she said. 

“Well, Asmira,” Nathaniel replied with a smile, “let's go talk in there.” He drew his hand away and pointed at the nearby room. Skull rolled his eyes as he followed Nathaniel inside. 

Hand lingering above her blade, Asmira joined the two in the study. She found Nathaniel sitting neatly with his legs crossed in one of the dust-covered chairs, while Skull sprawled across a fancy couch. She was growing fairly certain that neither one of them actually lived in this building, but their posture didn't betray that fact. They each sat there like they owned the structure, though Nathaniel's posture was more regal.

Asmira didn't sit down. She just kept standing where she was, observing both of them as Nathaniel spoke once more.

“Do you know what this place is?” he asked.

She shifted. For someone who had to be younger than her based on appearance alone – though spirits weren't bound to the same rules of aging as humans – the question came off as surprisingly condescending. 

“I don't,” she said. She raised an eyebrow, hand moving closer to the hilt of her blade. “Should I?”

“I don't know,” Nathaniel replied.

Silence.

Skull moved on the couch, rolling over and propping his head up on his elbow.

“What are you doing here?” Nathaniel continued. He shot Skull a glance when the boy let out what was clearly a mock yawn, but Skull just repeated the noise in response.

“I don't know,” she said.

“How do you know Bartimaeus?”

“It's...complicated,” Asmira replied, and left it at that. She wasn't going to go telling _that_ story to a complete stranger, especially when most of it wasn't something that was supposed to be shared. 

Nathaniel opened his mouth again, but he didn't get a chance to speak – Skull beat him to the chase. “You're dead, aren't you?” the boy asked. He hopped to his feet and walked over to her. He was frustratingly taller than her, if only by an inch. “You died and ended up here.”

“I don't know what you're-”

Skull poked her in the chest. 

“You died,” he said. He had more conviction than before. “I know you're lying – Natty boy and I both died, too. We-”

He froze and stared at her.

“We what?” she asked.

His gaze dropped down to her knife.

She didn't even have a chance to react before he had the knife in his own hand, quickly bringing it towards her. Nathaniel rushed out of his seat to stop Skull. But it was too late – the knife was almost at her chest. 

And then the temperature dropped and all the lights went out.

In the darkness that followed, she heard the clattering of the knife as it hit the ground. Nathaniel moved closer, and Skull stayed exactly where he was – even when Nathaniel tried to blindly grab onto him and nearly got Asmira instead.

“I knew it,” Skull said. “ _You're_ the ghost.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was written by the writing bug, so here's another chapter. This one features some more bickering, a few major realizations, and ~magic~.

Maybe trying to attack Asmira with the knife hadn't been the _best_ way to prove my point. It had seemed like a great idea at the time, but now I was beginning to wonder if temporarily getting both Asmira and Nathaniel on my bad side was worth it. 

“We're all technically ghosts,” Nathaniel hissed in the darkness.

“No,” I corrected, “Asmira is _our_ ghost. The one that turned off all of the lights earlier, and the one who made the air so cold. She's not actually a ghost, but she's acting like one. Just like _I_ acted like a ghost when I possessed you.”

It made sense when I thought about it – she had shown up just as everything had returned to normal, and had presumably started it all when she headed down the hallway. 

“...I'm not sure I understand,” Nathaniel hesitantly said.

Asmira shifted in the darkness. Maybe she was readying another knife; I wouldn't have been surprised if she had multiple ones on her. You could never have too many knives. 

“We have strange, magical powers, Natty boy,” I said. These powers were _technically_ the type that ghosts had, but it wasn't like being a ghost. We might have all died, but we were all alive right now – it was just a coincidence that they resembled ghostly abilities. 

Or, at least, that was my theory. 

“You probably have them, too,” I added. Two out of the three had them, so why wouldn't the third, too? We were already connected by dying and coming back to life. 

“That's impossible,” Asmira and Nathaniel said in unison, only to both awkwardly trail off when they realize they had spoken at the same time.

I stared at them in the darkness.

“We're all supposed to be dead,” I slowly reminded them, like I was talking to small children instead of two adults. In a sense, I was. I had to be the oldest one there by a long shot, and though my appearance made me look to be the youngest out of us three, I had to have a certain wisdom that came with age. “Magic isn't all that crazy when you add that.”

“But _we're_ not supposed to have magic like that,” Asmira protested. As she moved a little closer to me, the lights began to flicker back on; it seemed that Asmira was beginning to calm down after my faked assault. “That's something that demons have.”

“Demons don't exist,” I shot back, exasperated.

“They do. I've...I've summoned them,” Nathaniel countered. There was definitely something more to that story than he was letting on, but I ignored it as he kept talking. “And you're the one who says ghosts are real.”

“That's because they are,” I said. The temperature returned to normal, and the last bit of darkness fled to the shadows – leaving the three of us standing in an awkwardly close circle, one knife on the ground and the other in Asmira's hand. “ _I_ was a ghost. A Type III – the highest type of ghost there was. I haunted my skull for _years_. I don't know how you can ignore the Problem, either!” 

“I've never heard of it!” Nathaniel shouted back.

“How could you have never heard of it? It's been going on for nearly fifty years, and it's _everywhere_ – even London's got its ghost problems!” 

“London isn't haunted-”

“...Where's London?”

We stopped our bickering and turned back to Asmira.

“...Where's London?” I repeated, staring at her.

Her grip on her knife tightened. “I've never heard of London before,” she said. She was searching our faces – maybe trying to see if we were joking around – but that wasn't the sort of thing to joke about. I glanced over at Nathaniel, and he glanced over at me. “I was near Jerusalem.”

I stared at her clothes.

Nathaniel stared at her clothes.

And Asmira stared at ours.

“....I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Asmira's from the past,” I commented, taking a step forward and poking her clothes with a finger. You couldn't not know what London was, even if you were from a far away place. And her clothes didn't look modern in the slightest. They looked _old_ , and that was coming from the former ghost wearing clothes from more than a hundred years ago.

“That would mean you're from the future,” Asmira slowly said, her tone incredulous. She massaged her forehead with her free hand; the other still was clinging to her spare knife. “This doesn't make any sense.”

Nathaniel was quick to rescue us from the awkward silence that followed Asmira's comment.

“...It's about to make less sense,” he said. To my surprise, his gaze had moved on from Asmira – now he was looking at me with confusion in his eyes. “If it wasn't for everything else, I don't think I would believe this. But, Skull, you don't know what demons are?”

I crossed my arms. “I've heard of demons before – I'm not an idiot. But I've never met one because _they don't exist_.” 

“They do exist,” Nathaniel said.

I opened my mouth in protest, only to close it when Nathaniel held a single hand up. A scowl danced across my face, but I let him continue speaking.

“You're also right,” he said.

“He is?” Asmira asked.

“I am?” I asked.

“They don't exist for you, but ghosts do,” Nathaniel continued. It sounded like he was onto something, even though I had absolutely no idea what that something was. “Skull, you're from another reality.”

Silence descended upon us once more, though this time I was more convinced that the two I was with had lost their minds along with their lives when they died. That didn't make any sort of sense! I couldn't have been from another reality – those didn't even exist. The Other Side _might_ have counted, but it wasn't all too different from what the living knew of. It was just like a hidden layer you peeled back, not an entirely different thing.

“I don't believe you,” I declared.

“I guess it makes sense...” Asmira muttered as she grabbed her knife from the ground. 

“You too?” I said, staring at her.

“I died, ended up here, and found out I have magical powers,” Asmira immediately replied. “Other realities don't sound so strange.”

Letting out an angry huff, I started to head towards the door. I'd just do this on my own, then. Nathaniel and Asmira could go off and be crazy together – I'd keep my sanity, thank you very much. Besides, I knew how to be alone. I'd be alone for years, and the only company I had really had was Lucy. And even if I hated the thought of lonely days and nights, I could handle myself. I had to.

Asmira and Nathaniel hurried on after me.

Asmira reached her hand out and grabbed onto my shoulder.

A second later, I was watching my body fall to the ground. Instinct kicked in, and I rushed to pick it back up with Nathaniel's help. “Skull, are you okay?” he asked, trying to prop my body up.

“I'm fine-”

Oh.

 _That_ was why I was suddenly watching my body.

Nathaniel looked away from his body to stare at the woman beside him.

_What's happening-Skull, is that you? Did you possess me?_

I let out a sigh. “Hi, Asmira.”


End file.
